Summer Crickets

After I quit my job, I started to habitually buy a return train ticket to a random location. And I sit all the way to the destination and then take the next train to return. There is no particular reason, only that it came to me one evening after I spent all day lying in bed staring at the ceiling, that perhaps it might be a good idea to sit on a train. Without a job, I have been spending most of my time visiting local parks, and let myself drawn by whatever things that come to me. But gradually, I get bored with the monotony, as there isn’t a lot going on in the area in which I live. A friend said I could have used the money to travel. But it isn’t the travelling that I wanted. It’s doing something while not having to think about it, like window shopping, or browsing a magazine you find in the mailbox. 

Train tickets in England are ridiculously expensive. So I limit my travel within the Midlands, to places like Malvern, Abberley, or Stratford-upon-Avon. England has the most beautiful countryside. Particularly in summer, everything glistens wondrously under the glazing sun; the view looks like an old oil painting coming full force into life. Looking out from the window, I watch the green pastures and animals swooping by, and imagine life on a farm to be idyllic and peaceful, as though everything can be slowed down and comforted. 

I look at houses, too, when the train travels across a bridge overlooking a town. It’s interesting to see how differently people attend to their garden. I have a favourite one sitting at the waist of the hill near Tipton that has a glasshouse next to a big apple tree. Seeing the apples dangling on the branches made me very happy. When I still had my old job, I was quite depressed. I didn’t expect apples to have the power to lift that weight from my chest.

<<<

I once booked a ticket to Kings Norton in a late afternoon. When I arrived at the station, an old man in an orange Hi-Vis told me as a matter of factly that the train couldn’t run for the day because the rail signals down my neighbourhood had broken down. 

But my heart didn’t want to go home. Instead, I found a bench to sit on at the station for the time being. The summer’s day wouldn’t go dark until ten, so even at dawn, I had plenty of time to kill. Passengers were abandoning the station, leaving the air still and dense with the heat breathed from the trees. Blackbirds were pricking a piece of bread a boy threw earlier on the floor. I thought of walking to a bus station to take a detour, had I decided to go.

Out of the blue, someone came to sit right next to me. It caught me off guard as the bench shook so violently that I thought a street kid was going to mug me. But it was a man in his late twenties. Half-relieved, I threw him a harsh glare. The man had a fair complexion, a pair of chiseled cheeks, and a nicely shaved mustache. He looked back at me with his greyish eyes. I was surprised to find him rather good-looking. 

‘You sitting here alone?’ he said.

‘The station is closed today.’ I replied coldly. I thought he was slick for a British man. 

‘Sorry.’ He noticed my discomfort, his voice was full of regret. So he stood up to leave. Instantly I felt bad.  

‘Oh, do be seated.’ I said. ‘I don’t mind.’

He paused for a moment but decided to sit down. Somehow my invitation made me feel good about sitting with a stranger. It was kind of nice, in fact, like making a new friend you don’t have to commit to anything if it doesn’t work out.

‘I don’t always talk to people on the street, except a few times top.’ he said.

‘No, it was fine. You alright?’

He gave me a nervous smile and looked away. Maybe it was because he was sitting very close to me, and he was polite about breaking my personal bubble, the air had an intimate aura. I felt I could care for this person even just for a short evening. 

‘What was it?’ I asked, thinking that if he didn’t answer me, I would be okay with it too.  

He didn’t answer but took out some joints from his pocket and handed one to me. I declined, and told him to go ahead if he wanted to smoke. I was very sure I sensed a sadness that called to my spirit, making me very drawn to him. It was too bizarre. 

‘My mother died last night in the hospital. Don’t have a dad.’ he said coolly, in a tone that didn’t seem to be asking for my solace or pity, but to state a fact elicited out of a casual question.

‘I am sorry.’ I said.

I am terrible at showing emotions. I am too watchful and self-conscious. At heart, I can be sympathetic to a fault. But despite that I am often at a loss of words to show how much I agonise with people in suffering. And so, I was uncertain if I should keep telling him how sorry I was, or thank him for sharing it with me.

‘That’s fine.’ He nearly finished his joint. And I took it over from his finger and smoked up the rest. The joint had a pleasant herbal aftertaste. 

‘Cruel thing, isn’t it?’ I said, ‘Hope you get through this.’ Something was beginning to well up inside. My throat was choked in dry eagerness.

He listened and nodded. Then he gave me a faint smile. ‘You talk like you’ve gone used to these things. Funny how you wanted me away earlier. ’

‘Probably.’ I laughed. ‘Sorry about that.’

‘That’s okay. I probably came on a bit too strong.’

I wanted to disagree with him and tell him it was my problem, but I didn’t. After all, I was only behaving my nature. I wasn’t as guarded and alert as that before, until three years ago my last boyfriend ran away with another woman a few weeks after my father died. He was the only person I had been in love with, among all lovers. When I saw him I thought him so special. He had a serious but zealous look, and I could tell there was passion in him I normally couldn’t find in others. 

I never understood why he did it. Our breakup made me unable to talk and think about anything else for nearly six months, except for my job interviews which I hardly tottered through. At the time I was living alone away from home. And I didn’t want my mother to worry. After I received my job offer from the company I previously worked for, I moved further away in the hope that the sorrow would be gone. Yet I still think about him. About how things could have been. About if I was unlovable. I often felt empty and confused, and didn’t always recognise if I was happy, sad, or hungry. That was when I decided to quit my job and start this random hobby of sitting on a train.

‘It’s not your fault, honestly.’ I said.

‘Yeah, you learned better after bad things happened.’ he added.

His reply made me want to abandon my old life and run away with him.

‘I am going to walk to a bus station to try my luck. Kings Norton, you know? But I have to get to New Street first. Maybe you should come.’ I said.

‘Sure. I was going to the shops anyway.’

We walked to a bus station nearby, and arrived at the New Street station in an hour. Luckily, there was a train available. I told him that since I wasn’t going to stay there long, it would be fine if he changed his mind. He insisted, so I waited for him to pick up his grocery items at Tesco, and later we bought our own tickets and hopped on the train. 

<<<

The carriage was nearly empty. There was a smell of coffee and hot dogs in the air. An old lady was reading a Retro newspaper in the seat before us.

‘I used to go to a school in Kings Norton for cricket when I was younger. But I didn’t have the stamina to continue once I went to the sixth form because I really wanted to go to Oxford. A sweet town though.’ 

‘That’s nice.’

‘I know you don’t get off the train, but there is a large green right next to the station. People walk their dogs there in summer.’

I was too distracted by the view from outside the window. I loved that the train always went past a lot of farms. Some fields were already harvested, with hay bales stacked up neatly off the road. When the door opened, I could smell the mud and the insects that came yards away from behind the short stone wall.

‘It is beautiful.’ I murmured. 

‘It is.’ He looked out at the window, too. We both lost in thoughts, mixing ourselves into the sky and the setting sun gradually receding behind the tattered clouds.  

The train arrived at the Kings Norton at quarter past eight. The evening was bright but tender. We stood at the platform allowing our faces to get brushed by the breeze. He tilted his head to suggest we walk the green. 

After walking through a short tunnel, we found ourselves at the entrance of a well-attended greenfield. There were lime trees surrounding the land. A few yards further, forget-me-nots dotted the green with a dash of fresh blue matching the colour of the sky. Some people were indeed walking their dogs, most in solitary. 

‘In September you can find blackberries in the bush.’ He pointed at the sting nearby the trees. ‘When I was a student, I used to go hiking a lot with my friends in autumn and we always picked from blackberry trees whenever we found them in the wild.’

‘It’s nice walking here.’ I took a deep breath, swallowing and savoring the fresh air hugging our skin. I wouldn’t say it was happiness I felt at the moment, but I couldn’t help smiling. For the first time in a long time, I was not living in the past, grieving my own scar.

It was getting dark. I told him I had to leave soon.

‘I walk you to the station.’

‘Aren’t you coming with me?’ 

‘I wanted to walk a bit further. I just had a feeling of deja-vu.’

A few things came to my mind. I could join him for the adventure, find an excuse to prolong our walk, or ask for his number so we may see each other again. There was so much about him I wanted to know, about myself I wanted to tell him. But I just nodded. And it felt like the right thing to do.

Our walk back to the station was slow and quiet. When we were back at the station, the sky had already turned into purple grey. Without the sun there was a desolate feel to the town. The last splash of colour reminded me of the colours of his eyes. I turned to him, and said, ‘I had a nice evening. I hope you find solace in your walk later.’

‘Me too. Thanks for the trip.’ He gave me a short wave, and then disappeared around the corner of the stairs descending back to the tunnel. 

It was pitch dark when I arrived home. Standing in the kitchen and frying salmon for dinner, I felt light and staved, as though I just got out from a hot spring bath. The smell of the evening would forever stay with me. The dust of the dawn. The air blended with coffee and pastry. And the sweet smell of hay wafted from the breeze and of fallen leaves swirled in beautiful flurries.